Install GNU gcc g++

**Xinghao_Chen** · November 16th, 2013

About a year ago I installed a GNU C/C++ compiler on my 32-bit 11.10 with the following command line (thanks to the advice on this forum):

sudo apt-get install gcc g++ build-essential

Early this week I installed a 64-bit 12.04 on a USB stick memory.

Does the same command line mentioned above still hold for this 64-bit 12.04 platform and get a correct 64-bit GNU C/C++ compiler installed?

Thank you.

**steeldriver** · November 16th, 2013

Yes - although the 'gcc' and 'g++' parts are redundant since the build-essential meta package includes them in its dependencies

Code:

$ apt-cache depends build-essential
build-essential
 |Depends: libc6-dev
  Depends: <libc-dev>
    libc6-dev
  Depends: gcc
  Depends: g++
  Depends: make
  Depends: dpkg-dev

**Xinghao_Chen** · November 16th, 2013

I am not sure understanding completely. I have no idea what are the diferences between apt-get install and apt-cache depends.

As to the redundancy, do you mean:

%sudo apt-get install gcc build-essential

and

%sudo apt-get install g++ build-essential

will do the same and install GNU C/C++ compiler?

I am still a newbie with Ubuntu and C/C++ and it would be very helpful to me by explaining your code lines line-by-line.

Do I type every words of your code in command line? The "build-essential" appeared twice together and I am not sure why this is necessary as a command. Or, is the section starting from the second appearence of "build-essential" the output text?

**steeldriver** · November 16th, 2013

The command

Code:

apt-cache depends build-essential

just lists the components that will be installed as dependencies when you do

Code:

sudo apt-get install build-essential

**Xinghao_Chen** · November 16th, 2013

I just tried. Here is what I got:

xinghao@CTC-Ubuntu-64:~$ apt-cache depends build-essential
build-essential
|Depends: libc6-dev
Depends: <libc-dev>
libc6-dev
Depends: gcc
Depends: g++
Depends: make
Depends: dpkg-dev
Conflicts: build-essential:i386
xinghao@CTC-Ubuntu-64:~$

I have two questions:

(1) Does the "conflicts" line says something of trouble?

(2) The following two lines from the outputs:

Depends: <libc-dev>
libc6-dev

They seem to be in a different format then the rest of the "Depends" line. How do I read them?